Top Defence

[Toddkaz]

Tim Connelly leads +4 :o

 

who is are best defenceman????

[Sabresince70]

My vote went to McKee because I have the most faith in him - but if you take into account scoring and plus/minus its hard to argue with Lydman right now....

[Guest Guest_Toddkaz]

I remember when people like DELUCA were calling for Lydman's head Funny isn't it. ;)

[Saber61]

i vote for Teppo Numminen (never imagined i would) just cuze he's an assist generating machine... he's been huge for me in my pool with the assits... its ona almost a nightly basis too... not sure if he plays on the PP but he's been doing great... a goal or 2 here wouldn't hurt but, the playmaking is definatly welcome.

[Sabresince70]

In fairness to DeLuca, I think his arguement was that Lydman isn't a #1 or 2

d-man. The fact that our own poll has three tied with 3 votes, sorta proves his point of only having 3-7 defensemen. Lydman, McKee, Numminen and even Tallinder and Campbell have all played well this year, but is any of them in the top 15 defensemen in the East? I'm not putting them down - I'm very grateful for how they played and I think DeLuca would even admit that Lydman has been much better since coming back from his injury. But we still need a #1 and implying that we truly have one is insulting. Numminen is costing us more than he should - again not putting him down, but all indications are that he wasn't offered anything close to what we offered him.

 

I think we need to be rateful for Tallinder and Campbell's play this year as much as any on our D.

[Taro T]

In fairness to DeLuca, I think his arguement was that Lydman isn't a #1 or 2 

d-man. The fact that our own poll has three tied with 3 votes, sorta proves his point of only having 3-7 defensemen. Lydman, McKee, Numminen and even Tallinder and Campbell have all played well this year, but is any of them in the top 15 defensemen in the East? I'm not putting them down - I'm very grateful for how they played and I think DeLuca would even admit that Lydman has been much better since coming back from his injury. But we still need a #1 and implying that we truly have one is insulting. Numminen is costing us more than he should - again not putting him down, but all indications are that he wasn't offered anything close to what we offered him.

 

I think we need to be rateful for Tallinder and Campbell's play this year as much as any on our D.

I have no reason to doubt that the Sabres offered Numminen more money than anybody else did. I know Dallas was going to make an offer and I can't remember the other team that was said to be interested, but I can't believe either team needed him as desperately as the Sabres did at the time.

 

Prior to signing Zeppo, the Sabres had Kalinen, McKee, Tallinder, Campbell, Fitzpatrick, Jillson, and Janik. McKee had been a question mark because until this season he had never played up to his preconcussion level. Campbell was a question mark because he's Campbell. Tallinder was a question mark due to off-ice indiscretions. Jillson and Janik do not appear to be ready for the NHL at this time. That could change, but they currently are not ready for the NHL, day-in day-out.

 

The Sabres DESPERATELY needed another D-man and had already been rebuffed by Zhitnik and Aucoin at minimum and they probably had made offers to some other guys that the media didn't hear about. They especially needed a D-man with experience as most of the guys they had in the stable were not veterans. They couldn't afford to have Numminen get away as well, thus they made an offer that was higher than he probably should have reasonably expected. An argument could be made that the team should have offered Z and/or Aucoin more coin, but that doesn't change the fact that at the time they were trying to land Zeppo, Z and Aucoin were not available (nor were a lot of other D-men that might have upgraded the team).

 

I agree Campbell's play has been an important piece of the Sabres success so far. While Tallinder has played well in the last couple of games I watched (and I missed several games during the recent run, I will assume he has played well in those), he was brutal for several games prior to recent run. Hopefully, he maintains a high level of play; the Sabres need it.